American Handgunner Columns

COLUMNS

May/June 2008

Carry Options
Sammy Reese

Night Stand Bag
It’s O-Dark Thirty and you are awakened by the sound of breaking glass and the shrill piercing of your alarm. You grab your gun from the nightstand and take off to check on your children — or worse to clear the house alone in your skivvies.

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Cop Talk
Massad Ayoob

Rapid Reload
Shooting has become politically incorrect. Potential range properties are virtually unaffordable, taking up space landowners can more profitably sell to real estate developers. Indoor ranges are not only hugely expensive but are shut down right and left because of fears of pollution.

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GunCrank Diaries
John Connor

Funnybone Fractures & Cranked Concentraction
I’ve warned you guys. Weird things happen in gunfights. You should expect an Elbonian satellite to fall on your head, or a gopher the size of a grizzly to erupt from the ground at your feet. I’ve encouraged you to believe your eyes, shrug off bizarre twists, and stay focused on the threat.

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Handgun Hunting
J.D. Jones

Cordite?
Cordite hung in the air.” was a statement in a recent national LE magazine (not ours, by the way!). I instantly had visions of strings of cordite of varying sizes, floating effortless in the air as the result of someone having invented new anti-gravity material. For many decades authors of dramatic prose used the statement, “The smell of cordite hung heavy in the room,” or some such nonsense when referring to the odor of gunfire or an explosion.

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Handloading
John Taffin

Ease Up And Enjoy
One of my favorite movies is Valdez Is Coming with Burt Lancaster as the old US Cavalry Scout. When asked when he hunted Apaches he said, “Before I knew better.” For the most part, my early reloading was “Before I knew better.” I did not label any of my cartridge boxes as it was not necessary.

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The Insider
Roy Huntington

H.A.V.A. Hunt For Vets
Sometimes it’s easy to do the right thing, and this was one of those times. Under the leadership and arm-twisting of Tom Taylor, V.P. of Sales and Marketing at S&W, Honored American Vets Afield was born in 2007.

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Pistolsmithing
Alex Hamilton

John Browing Is Alive
Research and development within the firearms industry is mostly limited to the big guys who can afford to pay in-house inventors to innovate old products or design new ones. R&D is very expensive proposition with questionable returns.

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Reality Check
Clint Smith

Rapid Reload
In the world of instant gratification we live in there is that never-ending quest for the need for speed. Wife Heidi’s uncle, Chuck Lyford, was a P51 Mustang driver at Reno as well other intense places around the planet.

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Shooting Iron
Mike “Duke” Venturino

Idiots I’ve Meet At Gun Shows
For 30 years now I’ve enjoyed gun shows. I’ve attended ones ranging from less than 100 tables here in Montana to some with over 1,000 tables in Las Vegas.

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Taffin Tests
John Taffin

The .45 Auto RIM
Ninety years ago we entered World War I. Actually, the war started three years earlier in 1914, however we did not go to the aid of the British and French until 1917. Even though the United States had three years to get ready, we still had a shortage of firearms and the available factories and machinery could not produce 1911s fast enough to supply all the troops.

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Winning Edge
Dave Anderson

Ruger’s “Detective” Gun
The Colt Detective Special was introduced in 1927 (some sources say 1928) at the suggestion of the legendary “Fitz” (J.H. Fitzgerald). It remained in production for some 60 years, serving generations of peace officers and private citizens.

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